Ring vortex destabilization in supersaturated 3He-4He liquid mixtures at low temperatures

This paper presents an analysis of a model problem, consisting of two interacting rigid rings, for the rotation of molecules in liquid $^4$He. Due to Bose symmetry, the excitation of the rotor corresponding to a ring of N helium atoms is restricted to states with integer multiples of N quanta of angular momentum. This minimal model shares many of the same features of the rotational spectra that have been observed for molecules in nanodroplets of $\approx 10^3 - 10^4$ helium a...

We have studied self-sustained, deformable, rotating liquid He cylinders of infinite length. In the normal fluid $^3$He case, we have employed a classical model where only surface tension and centrifugal forces are taken into account, as well as the Density Functional Theory (DFT) approach in conjunction with a semi-classical Thomas-Fermi approximation for the kinetic energy. In both approaches, if the angular velocity is sufficiently large, it is energetically favorable for ...

We study a two-phase sample of superfluid 3He where vorticity exists in one phase (3He-A) but cannot penetrate across the interfacial boundary to a second coherent phase (3He-B). We calculate the bending of the vorticity into a surface vortex sheet on the interface and solve the internal structure of this new type of vortex sheet. The compression of the vorticity from three to two dimensions enforces a structure which is made up of half-quantum units, independently of the str...

Formation of vortex rings around moving spherical objects in superfluid He-4 at 0 K is modeled by time-dependent density functional theory. The simulations provide detailed information of the microscopic events that lead to vortex ring emission through characteristic observables such as liquid current circulation, drag force, and hydrodynamic mass. A series of simulations were performed to determine velocity thresholds for the onset of dissipation as a function of the sphere ...

Collisions in a beam of unidirectional quantized vortex rings of nearly identical radii $R$ in superfluid $^4$He in the limit of zero temperature (0.05 K) were studied using time-of-flight spectroscopy. Reconnections between two primary rings result in secondary vortex loops of both smaller and larger radii. Discrete steps in the distribution of flight times, due to the limits on the earliest possible arrival times of secondary loops created after either one or two consecutiv...

The experimental investigation of superfluid turbulence in 3He-B is generally not possible with the techniques which have been developed for 4He-II. We describe a new method by which a transient burst of turbulent vortex expansion can be generated in 3He-B. It is based on the injection of a few vortex loops into rotating vortex-free flow. The time-dependent evolution of the quantized vorticity is then monitored with NMR spectroscopy. Using these techniques the transition betw...

The superfluid transition of $^3$He-$^4$He mixture films adsorbed on alumina powder is studied, with a $^4$He superfluid coverage near one layer. With up to 1.3 layers of $^3$He added, the transition becomes strongly broadened, indicating a linear increase in the vortex core size for $^3$He coverages below one layer. Annealing of the sample mixture at 4.2 K is found to be critically important in ensuring a homogeneous film across the porous substrate.

We compare dynamical and energetical stability criteria for vortex rings. It is argued that vortex rings will be intrinsically unstable against perturbations with short wavelengths below a critical wavelength, because the canonical vortex Hamiltonian is unbounded from below for these modes. To explicitly demonstrate this behaviour, we derive the oscillation spectrum of vortex rings in incompressible, inviscid fluids, within a geometrical cutoff procedure for the core. The spe...

We address the collision of two superfluid 4 He droplets at non-zero initial relative velocities and impact parameters within the framework of liquid 4 He time-dependent density functional theory at zero temperature. In spite of the small size of these droplets (1000 He atoms in the merged droplet) imposed by computational limitations, we have found that quantized vortices may be readily nucleated for reasonable collision parameters. At variance with head-on collisions, where...

This paper presents a finite particle approximation of the two-fluid model for liquid $^4$He using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). In recent years, several studies have combined the vortex filament model (VFM), which describes quantized vortices in superfluid components, with the Navier-Stokes equations, which describe the motion of normal fluids. These studies led us to assume that coupling both components of the two-fluid model instead of using the VFM to describe th...